


love like ghosts

by ghoulwheeze (trek_locked)



Series: skeptic believer playlist [1]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Emotional Hurt, M/M, Post-Break Up, Song fic, Unrequited Love, and a random uber driver, really really depressed ryan, shyan, skeptic believer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-01-29 15:43:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12634140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trek_locked/pseuds/ghoulwheeze
Summary: Based on "Love Like Ghosts" (Lord Huron)Ryan finds out Shane doesn't love him anymore, and must face the devastation of Shane leaving.





	1. Ryan

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by @cryptidsaregay 's awesome shyan playlists! go check them out on spotify:  
> https://open.spotify.com/user/dreary_opal/playlist/1vk5W3lkvG3PIAA93rt8S9

“Please don’t lie to me Shane. You owe me that much.”

Because it hurt. It hurt like hell and Ryan had no idea how he’d get through it but if Shane was leaving him he would damn well find out why.

“I have to know why.”

The way Shane was looking at him cracked something deep within his soul. It felt like a fundamental piece of him was being torn apart and cast adrift. The one tether in Ryan’s life was staring at him with nothing in his eyes and a hunch in his shoulders.

Shane let out a quiet sigh. “I just- I can’t do this anymore. I used to feel something, but it’s gone. And to be honest, it’s been gone for a while. I’ve tried, but there’s just nothing there.”

Nothing there. There’s just nothing there.

The words echoed over and over again in Ryan’s head as he watched Shane drag his bags out the door and to the Uber. He’d asked in a voice that sounded as if it belonged to another body if his boyfriend, his ex-boyfriend, had needed any help. All he got in response was a tired no and a turned back.

When he finally got his body to move, Ryan drifted over to the window. Staring down at the street below, he could see Shane throwing duffle bags in the trunk. His hair was lit by the moonlight, glowing and almost transparent. It blended with his white button-up shirt, and tore at his heart to just look at him like that. The moonlight turned Shane into a ghost, the one thing Ryan had been chasing his whole life and never found, never held onto.

He was so close and then somehow, he’d fucked it up.

Maybe this was what death felt like. This feeling was why those stupid spirits stuck around for so long. The pain had settled deep his stomach, pulling him down to the earth and trapping him there. Ryan felt paralyzed, like he’d never be mobile again. All he’d really wanted was to feel something after Shane had been so distant for so long, but he hadn’t wanted to feel this. Now he was left crumped on the floor, unable to move, unable to breathe.

He’d asked Shane to hurt him and he had.

The moon cast slivers of light across the floor from the window above his head. It felt like a presence there with him. Like Shane’s ghost was still there. Like the ghost of Shane’s love was there beside him.

Ryan hoped it would keep him company until he ceased to exist. If he just sat on this floor forever, never moving, Ryan would be there waiting for that ghost every night.

Creeping out one hand from the darkness, he touched the silver beam that lit the floor. It was cool to the touch, just like Shane’s hands. With careful precision, he maneuvered himself till his body was blanketed by the beam. Blanketed by the ghost of Shane’s love.

Thoughts of past happiness flickered through his mind. Laughing in a cluttered basement. Playfully arguing in Ryan’s home library. Holding hands walking through Disneyland. Tangled together on the floor of a haunted home. Kissing gently over a bowl of popcorn. Pressing skin to skin wrapped in bed sheets.

And Ryan couldn’t even be mad at Shane. In his eyes, his lover could do no wrong. Shane was simply fated to be one of spirits that flitted in and out of his life before his eyes.

Then his phone buzzed. Laying there, Ryan had somehow existed beyond the passage of time, so he almost felt surprise when he noticed a few hours had passed. Except he could feel nothing. It barely registered that the night was slipping by. With a sigh, he slipped his phone from his back pocket.

It was a missed call from an unknown number.

He placed the phone gently beside him, just beyond the edge of the moonbeam.

A moment passed, and it rang again. And again. And again.

Ryan waited for it to ring once more before picking up.

“Hello?”

As he listened for a moment, it clicked. It was the hospital. They were calling because he was an emergency contact. They were calling because he was one Shane Madej’s emergency contact. They were calling because somehow, he needed to know that his love who had left him here to pass away gently with the voyage of time was actually the one who had passed.

Except he had passed violently. A side-on collision that left Shane dead on impact.

Ryan thought about saying something to the operator waiting on the other line, but he just hung up instead. There was a new ache deep inside him that had bloomed right beside the ache of Shane’s leaving. An ache that left him curling up into a tighter ball cocooned in the beam, trying to make the most of its cool touch before it left him.

It was all of Shane he had left. A body in a morgue and a ghost of his skeptic’s love.

And it was probably best he hung up on the operator. Because the ghost of Ryan’s love was all that was left now, and all it could think was “If I can’t have him, no one ever will.”


	2. Shane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on "The Night We Met" (Lord Huron)  
> Shane faces the fact that he doesn't love Ryan anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> inspired by @cryptidsaregay 's awesome shyan playlists! go check them out on spotify:  
> https://open.spotify.com/user/dreary_opal/playlist/5AM8oYkKc7XJG6ju7QfKoj

Shane just felt… empty.

Things had been great. He’d moved in with Ryan a couple months ago, and they were the greatest months of his life. Until he’d lost interest. The life of their relationship – the laughter, the smiles, the sweet kisses, the most intense sex Shane had ever had – suddenly wasn’t enough. It was hard to put effort in when his boyfriend’s grins left him feeling cold. When movie nights dragged on. When coming home to Ryan felt like a chore instead of a gift.

The worst part was he knew he was doing a shit job of hiding it.

Shane just didn’t care.

In the darkest parts of the night, with his boyfriend snoring softly beside him, he’d think about why. Who was he to ruin the most perfect love of all time? The entire office thought they were Disney come to life. Their fans had been overjoyed at their long-awaited announcement of their relationship. And the most important part, Ryan was so, so happy.

He’d glowed for weeks.

Sometimes, Shane wished he could go back. Go back to the time when life was simpler, when he’d had a massive crush on his co-worker, when he couldn’t keep his hands to himself, when ghost hunting was fun because his personal sunshine was there to illuminate each and every location. He wished he could back to the night they’d met. Two men who only knew each other as Ryan Bergara and Shane Madej.

What the hell was he supposed to do now?

If he told Ryan, the man would break. Even though Shane felt nothing anymore, he still didn’t want to see someone he’d once loved implode in on himself.

Shane tried to recall that feeling, the one that kickstarted his heart and fluttered in his chest, to bring it back so that he wouldn’t have to leave and ruin everything. But all that was left was a ghost of his love.

Funny how maybe ghosts were real.

He wished he could go back to that night they’d met.

Because now he was finally feeling something. Terror. It ignited in the pit of his stomach and spread out across him limbs, leaving him a quaking mess.

How dare Ryan ask him to not lie.

Shane lied for _him_ , to protect _him_ , and _his_ feelings, and _his_ insecurities, and now –

“I just- I can’t do this anymore. I used to feel something, but it’s gone. And to be honest, it’s been gone for a while. I’ve tried, but there’s just nothing there.”

As soon as he said it, the nothingness was back. He stopped shaking, just let out a quiet sigh.

It was easier to start packing his things than face the tear-stained face of his ex-boyfriend.

For a while, he had all of Ryan. Then most. Later, some. Now, none.

It didn’t matter. He was leaving, bags packed and beside the door. It was just a couple clicks and an Uber was on its way. The decision to look at Ryan again was tearing him up inside. Would he regret never seeing his great love one last time? Would he be able to stand looking at his greatest tragedy and not break?

In the end, Ryan asked if he needed help. Shane responded with a negative and a turned back. It was easier this way.

He’d simply walked down those stairs, burdened not with his bags but with the weight of all the things he’d left behind. Shane kept moving.

The car wasn’t there yet, so he waited on the sidewalk. Above him, a curtain fluttered, but Shane avoided lifting his head. There was a man up there, with tears streaming down his face, that he didn’t want to see.

When the Uber arrived, his bags were piled into the back. Shane got into the backseat, making sure his eyes never wandered above the streetlamp-lit sidewalk. The door slammed behind him, a final farewell.

How could he feel this numb when he’d felt so much? That night they’d met, it was as if Shane was soaring higher than the stars.

Most of the ride passed in silence. On all sides, the night seemed to be closing in, terrors peering out from the shadows. Shane felt entrapped, at a loss without a familiar body beside him. And then those terrors must have passed their judgement on him, for Shane was suddenly no more. All that was left was an empty body and the ghost of a love long gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finished! Sorry again for the angst. There will be more fics in this series, so keep an eye out. Kudos and comments are always welcome, I'd love to know what you think <3

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first shyan fic, so hope you enjoy! I love that sweet, sweet angst. I am making a series for other songs on the playlists, so stay tuned. Kudos and comments are always welcome, I'd love to know what you think <3


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